As reported by Eurogamer, the shipment that was lost was the second of five that were being sent to an avid SNES fan in New Jersey, nicknamed Byuu. He had made a deal with a collector in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany’s second-largest city, to make copies of the full collection – 500 games – and put it online. As each package was copied, Byuu would then send it back before receiving the next one. The first shipment went like a dream, and both parties felt confident to go another round.
Things didn’t go as smoothly the second time, however, as the USPS lost the shipment without a trace. Byuu took to Reddit to enlist the help of members there who work at USPS, but to no avail, as the package had seemingly disappeared into thin air. Taking advice from another Redditor, Byuu is planning to set up a GoFundMe page to pay the German collector back for the loss of one-fifth of his Super Nintendo collection as the package was only insured until the moment it touched U.S. shores.
Though this may not seem like a huge loss, it’s total weight becomes apparent when one takes into account that full collections like these are rare indeed: many copies of SNES games – which was launched in Japan in 1990 and North American in 1991 – have either been lost or destroyed, with not even Nintendo itself having a full working catalog of the ancient console’s games. Sadly, the 100 that have disappeared may be gone for good.
This sad news for the Nintendo fan community comes in the same week that rumors have surfaced the Japanese corporation may be discontinuing the NES Classic Edition, though they may be cheered up by the realization that the Switch will be out in just a few weeks. What will happen with Byuu’s planned SNES archive remains to be seen, though he has seemingly given up on getting this project off the ground again.
Let’s hope Byuu’s SNES archive can eventually come to pass.
